First Week of School

I am delighted to have you in my classroom! The first week of school was extremely fun and successful. The class enjoyed several "getting to know you" activities and worked hard to establish our daily routine.

**Just a few reminders:

• Don't forget to bring in your signed school paper work for $5 in Manatee Bucks
• Make sure you're getting your planner signed EVERY night
• Bring in your supplies if you haven't already
• Scholastic book order forms went home on Friday...the deadline for orders is Sept. 24th

I'm looking forward to another fantastic week!

First Day of School Photos

Exploring South America!

Each grade level this year will be representing a different continent of the world. For third grade, we will explore South America.

Here are some interesting facts about our continent:

* South America is home to the world's highest waterfall, Angel Falls in Venezuela.
* The largest river (by volume), the Amazon River is located here.
* The longest mountain range, the Andes run through South America.
* The driest place on Earth,the Atacama Desert and the largest rainforest,the Amazon Rainforest are also found in South America.
* South America's major mineral resources are gold, silver, copper, iron ore, tin and petroleum. These resources bring in high income to its countries.
* It is home to many unique and interesting species of animals including the llama, anaconda, piranha fish, jaguar and the tapir (a pig-like animal).
* The Amazon rainforests contain a major proportion of Earth's species.
* Brazil is the largest country of South America based on area and population.
* Countries in South America include Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Paraguay, Peru, Suriname, Uruguay and Venezuela.
* South Americans are culturally influenced by the historical connection with Europe, esepcially Spain and Portugal.
* South American nations have a rich variety of music. Some of the most famous genres include cumbia from Colombia, samba and bossa nova from Brazil and tango from Argentina and Uruguay.
* Spanish and Portuguese are the most spoken languages in South America. Spanish is the official lnaguage of most counties.

All information came from Wikipedia.org

Exploring Solids & Boxes

Dear Family,

For the next few weeks, we will be doing a mathematics unit called Exploring Solids and Boxes. The goal of this unit is for students to become comfortable with the characteristics of basic geometric shapes, such as pyramids, cubes and prisms.

Learning about three-dimensional (3-D) shapes is an often-overlooked part of mathematics. This is surprising because the ability to reason about 3-D shapes is a very practical mathematical skill. Jobs ranging from architecture to fashion design to constructoin work require that people know how to think about and manipulate shapes. Many jobs also require workers to read two-dimensional plans for geometric shapes, and to translate the plans into three dimensions. These are just the kinds of skills that your child will be working on.

In this unit, the class will be building common 2-D and 3-D shapes. Students will make open boxes out of paper and fill boxes with small cubes. This gives them a chance to develop their ideas about how much space is actually in a box (volume). As a final project, students design and build a city out of paper boxes and figure how much room is in their buildings.

For homework, your child might be asked to find objects that have the same shape as those we are studying in class. Your child may also be asked to draw paper patterns that fold to make different geometric shapes.

You can help your child by showing an interest in and talking about what the class is doing. Another way you can help throughout this unit, and throughout the year, is to encourage your child to work with building toys and materials that you have around the house. Elementary students are never too old to play with blocks- nor are their parents! This play serves an important learning need: It stimulates children to make observations and draw conclusions about properties of two and three dimensional objects and shapes.

Happy Earth Day!

We are celebrating Earth day today and everyday! Students learned about ways to save energy, water and to keep our environment clean. We also learned 3 important words: reduce, reuse and recycle. This week, students will be keeping track of good things they do for our planet. This includes:

• Helping to recycle paper and use both sides of it
• Turning off t.v. and other "electronics" when we aren't using them
• Turning off water when we brush our teeth
• Taking shorter showers
• Picking up litter
  

Students also helped to pick up garbage on the playground at school today. We are excited to "go green" in our classroom! Here are some websites with additional great information about Earth Day...

http://www.earthday.net/

http://www.epa.gov/earthday/

http://www.earthday.gov/kids.htm